LITTLE TOKYO AND LALALA, 2022

This project reviews the overlap between Japanese writer Kyoko Hayashi's texts portraying her childhood experiences in Shanghai during WWII and my childhood memory. Tracing the history of Shanghai's 'Japanese society,' this project uses video and object installation to explore the contradictory and complex relationship between Shanghainese and Japanese, individual and war.

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Channel I The Map 3'59"

Using walking as a method to tell the story of the present and past and discover the neighborhood's history. I meet Kyoko Hayashi from the 1940s on the map,  tell the story behind it.

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Channel II La La La 2'43"

A short documentary of the 'la-la-la' song and Kyoko Hayashi's short story la-la-la,la-la-la . The video takes Kyoko's text as a lead-in and the history of the 'la-la-la' song to unfold the sufferings of Chinese children during the war. When KyokoHayashi discovered that the 'la-la-la' song she was singing with Chinese friends

is anti-Japanese, she used the song to investigate her own identity as an invader.

Today, the song is still popular in China.